Sea Devils Production Journal 6/8/2001

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By Kenneth Plume

Continuing our ongoing behind-the-scenes look at the production of the independent film Sea Devils, Costume Designer Mike Constable has sent the fourth of our ongoing journal entries ¿ this time with a special look into the difficulties inherent in costuming a period film.Sea Devils details the exploits of a squad of Italian frogmen during World War II, focusing on their daring raid against British warships anchored in Alexandria, Egypt.

Costume Designer Mike Constable on the set of Sea Devils.

I should call this: ¿As a costume designer, my job is supposed to be¿¿During the first shoot out on the barge, it was 15 straight hours out on the water, in the cold weather with the waves ¿ we had a damn good crew on board. Being a costume designer, you¿re just supposed to design the clothing and get them set up for the costumers to do ¿ but we have no costumers on this show, so I'm doing everything¿ Costuming, make-up, set design¿ All that stuff, just to make sure everything looks good. I think the most difficult thing on that first shoot was dealing with the heavy seas, and trying to get everything set up with all the water coming over and hitting us all over. That, and all the bloody scenes with the blood all over everything ¿ that we had to keep cleaning up, which meant we were running short on costuming. We were having to cut up shirts and having to patch them into other shirts to make them look good for another shoot. All in all, though, the wardrobe looks really good on that first shoot.Getting costuming for a period picture is almost impossible. We had to manufacture everything, or sew different countries¿ outfits that look exactly the same. We¿re using some Swiss stuff on Sea Devils ¿ even though it¿s not Italian, the Swiss uniforms look exactly like the period Italian uniforms. We did a lot of modifying ¿ painting helmets¿ having people do stencils for free. We had this one girl, Sherry, who volunteered and worked her tail off making our stencils. I had my wife painting the helmets for me and getting all that stuff ready. I had everybody involved. Being authentic is very serious to me. I'm a total fanatic about having everything right, because there's going to be one person out there who's going to know what is should be. People don't realize just how much work goes into the difficulties of period costuming. Most of our stuff is being made right now ¿ totally authentic reproductions ¿ in China. We have everything being made overseas. Pakistanis are doing all of our insignia. Everything¿s coming out really, really good. Our upcoming shoots should be flawless.Keeping continuity is also important as we shoot. Such as remembering watches, what color the watches were ¿ we had a problem with that on the second shoot¿ We forgot the watches. We had to go over really quick and make one up and paint the band the right color so it matched the scene we shot previously. Everyone involved in this film is in charge of continuity. We all sat there and looked at the videos to make sure the continuity was right. I caught the watch thing. I caught zippers being open the wrong way. When we got off the last shoot on the barge, I unzipped stuff to put pictures in the pockets ¿ so I had to go through the videos to see if the zippers were either closed or open, to make sure we didn¿t screw up anything. I don't want to have the zipper open in one shot then closed the next. The same thing goes with bloodstains on certain areas of the shirt. You¿ll notice a lot of continuity goofs in Pearl Harbor.We pretty much do everything to help out everybody. We¿re just sticking in there. What really committed me to this film was (Producer) Brandon (Hogan). We¿ve been friends for a few years, and I just have a lot of faith in him, and I have a lot of faith in this production company. We¿re going to get through this. In the middle of all these hard times, most guys would have just walked away from it and said, ¿Screw this. I can¿t deal with it.¿ ¿ but I'm not going to do that. I really want to stick this out, because I know it¿s going to be a good film. I love doing period costuming, and I love making sure that it¿s done right. It's also a matter of getting my name known more, because this will be the first film that I¿ve been on as a credited costume designer. When I was on Pearl Harbor, I didn¿t get my name mentioned at all in the credits. I was one of the silent people who did a lot of work. That¿s pretty much what I¿ve been doing for the last ten years ¿ just being the guy in the background who does all the work, gets all the details right, and gets no credit. When you¿re contracted out to do work like that, you don't get anything ¿ no benefits, nothing. On Pearl Harbor, we made a lot of the flight equipment for the Japanese and the Americans. We did a lot of Ben Affleck stuff. We did the RAF life preservers. All kinds of stuff like that, and you hardly even saw it. That¿s what irritates the heck out of you ¿ you know the work went into it, but you don't see it on film. All the work and detail that went into it, and you don't even see it. We did wardrobe, props, and set designing on that film ¿ and credited for none. Audiences don't know about the people that are underneath everybody. Usually, the only people that get credited are the people that really don't know the costuming ¿ the era and such. There are so many people that don't know anything about period costuming, but yet they get credited for everything ¿ and they¿re the ones that win the Academy Awards and make all the money. It's the people like us, that are contracted out, that get nothing. That¿s why this film is a big step for me. It really is. I¿ll be credited, and everyone will be going, ¿Who the heck is this guy?¿ Wardrobe on this film is really stressful, because there's so much detail involved. You can¿t just throw ribbons on a uniform ¿ you have to research them to see what those guys actually got awarded before the period in time you¿re covering. You have to make sure you don't put a ribbon from 1942 in a film that takes place in May of 1941. In regards to our main characters, we¿re doing a lot of research on the Internet and in any book we can get ¿ anything we can get on these guys ¿ to find out what they were actually dressed in before this incident. There are a lot of minute details, but they mean a lot to people watching this film. One person will make or break it ¿ they can rip it apart and say, ¿What the heck did you do that for?¿We haven¿t attempted to reconstruct the dive outfits yet. We¿ve got the dry suits coming in, and we¿re waiting for the rebreathers. Basically, it amounts to covering the modern look up and making everything look more period. There are the wrong colors on stuff, so you have to paint up the dry suits and give them a little bit of age ¿ like they¿ve been used a lot. Most of these guys would be veterans, diving all the time, so the suits shouldn¿t be new. As far as the suits go, most of the materials used back then were rubberized canvas. Today, those materials are definitely not practical, because it will just suck you ¿ it¿s a loose-fitting suit, so if you dive too deep, the suit starts sucking your body. Nowadays, they don't use anything like that. My concern is just making sure that the look is right. And there's no possibility of securing actual period suits ¿ they don't even have them in the museum in Italy. We got a hold of the museum in Italy, and they pretty much laughed at us, because the stuff is just not available. This is a difficult process, but we¿ll get through it.Mike ConstableCostume Designer